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Brother in-laws Dell P4 only shows black screen in XP

M

mazeroth

Golden Member
My brother in-law that lives almost 200 miles away called me saying his computer will boot into XP but only show a black screen and a mouse cursor. He rebooted multiple times with no luck. I told him to hit F8 and boot into Safe Mode, which he did and that worked just fine. He does have the option (not sure when it prompted him, while in Safe Mode or before he selected safe mode) to do a system restore that will restore it to a previous state. I've never had to do this so I don't know what all is involved. He only uses it for the internet and playing World of Warcraft. I do know he has an nVidia 6800 but other than that I'm clueless.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Most likely a driver issue. I doesn't load that driver in safe mode, so it works. When prompted to restore, just follow the directions.

If that doesn't fix it, probably time to re-install the various drivers from safe mode.
 
I hate helping the computer illiterate from so far away! 🙂

I forgot to mention that he was using it in the morning, went to work and left it on. When he came back it was still in Windows but nothing he clicked on would work. That prompted a reboot and the current state he's in.

Last chance to chime in before I tell him to restore! Hmmm...I'l give you all a few hours 😉
 
You could try the restore, but personally I don't think it will work. It sounds to me like the Video card went bad.
Or possibly a bad power supply with a problem on the power line that feeds the Video card. When in Safe Mode
most computers will use on board video or just load very basic video drivers. It is unlikely his video drivers are at
fault unless he tried to update them (without telling you he did) and it got messed up (say from wrong drivers)
 
Safe mode in XP is the same as regular load but safe mode users fewer drivers. And safe mode with a command prompt may yield some clues on what is not loading.

And sometimes, using another regular windows XP disk may allow you to restore the missing driver in windows restore mode.

But like every troubleshooting problem, you have to put every possibility on the table, and then try to narrow things down. And if bruceb is correct and the dell has some on board video capacity, you may be able to get it to boot by switching to on board video. Try loading bios defaults if nothing else. Some research on the dell website recommended, especially if your brother in law can get safe mode with networking working.
 
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